Tonight, one of the
most brazen prison breaks
in American history.
Alcatraz is considered
the highest security prison.
It's on a rock in the middle
of the San Francisco Bay.
The cold water, the currents,
all that make it
inescapable in the eyes
of the federal government.
A perfectly masterminded
plot with only a handful
of clues left behind.
These three inmates were
able to outsmart the guards
and the FBI with some
paper mache heads,
a spoon, and some raincoats.
And evidence suggests
that they made it
off the rock and got away.
Now, we explore the top theories
surrounding the notorious
escape from Alcatraz.
I don't think any case
I've ever worked on has been
scientifically tested as
much as this escape case.
It's one of the biggest
manhunts ever launched
and it's still going on today.
What happened to these
infamous Alcatraz escapees?
Is it really possible
they survived
and if so, where did they go?
It's the
morning of June 12th, 1962,
on Alcatraz Island in
San Francisco Bay.
So we've got three
prisoners, Frank Morris,
John Anglin,
and his brother, Clarence.
day, they don't respond,
so a guard goes to check
on all three of them.
He sees all three of
them lying in their beds.
So he walks over to Frank's cell
and he taps him on the
head with his nightstick
and Frank's head falls off.
This guard had the
shock of his life.
He probably thought he had
just decapitated the man.
All three prisoners
have vanished from their cells
with three lifelike paper
mache heads left behind.
Immediately, this creates chaos.
These prisoners are gone.
How could these prisoners
have escaped this
super security prison?
Alarms sound
as pandemonium takes hold.
The inmates are celebrating,
they're cheering and hollering.
Meanwhile, the guards
are just trying
to figure out what's going
on and they immediately
start checking everyone's cell.
They discover that another
prisoner, Allen West,
also is in possession
of a fake head made
out of paper mache.
West admits
he was part of an escape,
but failed to get out
of his cell in time.
In exchange for
leniency, he agrees
to tell investigators exactly
how his fellow inmates
did the impossible.
It's amazing that these
three men were even able
to get out of the
prison complex itself.
Alcatraz had the reputation
of being the most secure
prison in the country.
There had been 36 recorded
escape attempts from Alcatraz.
None of them succeeded.
Prisoners were either sh*t
on site caught or drowned.
Alcatraz opened in August, 1934,
and quickly became known
as the most fortified
prison in America.
Alcatraz is celebrated
as the crown jewel of the
prison system at this time.
All of the bars on
the windows are said
to be tool safe.
There are remote
control gas canisters
that can be deployed in
the event of an escape
or in the event of a riot.
There are guard
overlooks at each end
so that guards can fire into
the cell blocks if needed.
Even if you do get
outta Alcatraz,
you still have to contend with
six watch towers as
well as a 20 foot fence
with barbed wire.
And if by some miracle you
make it over that as well,
you still are
dealing with the dark
and turbulent waters of
the San Francisco Bay.
I like to think of the
water surrounding Alcatraz
as a kind of moat.
We've got this
impenetrable fortress,
the castle on the island.
Guys like Al Capone,
guys like Whitey Bulger,
they get sent to Alcatraz.
You've gotta be somebody
special to make it
inside the walls of this prison.
Frank Morris and the Anglin
Brothers came to Alcatraz
with a long history of escapes.
Frank Morris is a career
criminal, a very good one too.
He'd been in and out of the
system since the age of 13,
mostly for robbery charges.
He was such an
accomplished escape artist
that some people referred
to him as the Houdini
of the prison system because
he had successfully escaped
from so many facilities
before being sent to Alcatraz.
John and Clarence Anglin,
they were from the
Florida, Georgia area.
They were career criminals.
They had robbed a bank
in Ohio with a toy g*n.
But they get sent to Alcatraz
because they were trying to
escape Leavenworth Prison.
But according to
the testimony Allen West gives,
West is the mastermind
behind this plot.
Allen West is housed
in the same cell block
and starts plotting out the
escape several months prior.
Allen West's prison
job is to repaint the top
of the cell blocks, but he
soon sees an opportunity.
Behind each of the cells
is a narrow utility
and maintenance corridor
that runs three stories up
to the top of the cell block.
Now, before you get to
the roof of the building,
there's about a seven
foot gap above the cells,
and in this gap,
West sees a vent
that seems to lead
up to the roof.
He thinks that if he can
somehow remove this vent,
he can crawl through
it up to the roof
and then slide down
this stove pipe
from the prison bakery
on the northwest side
of the building.
But in order to pull
this escape plan off,
West is gonna need some help.
And to do this, he recruits
the guys from his cell block,
guys that had already escaped
from other facilities.
But as West tells investigators,
they first needed a
way out of their cells
and into the maintenance
corridor behind.
Looking inside of
a cell on Alcatraz,
there's only a few features,
and one of them right below
the sink is an air vent.
Because of the
deterioration of the facility
and salt water wreaks
havoc on concrete,
they were able to fashion spoons
and be able to just
basically scrape away
the concrete around this vent.
They work at night,
standing guard for each other
and devise a way to
cover up their handiwork
Because these men would
be widening their vents,
they couldn't just leave holes
in the back of their cells.
West secures green
paint from his prison job
and he shows the other prisoners
that there's a way to kind
of repaint around the
vent as they remove it.
It requires a lot of patience
because the guards go around
and do hourly checks.
Later on, what they do
is they start to create
paper mache vents
as sort of a cover for the
holes that they're creating.
If you looked at it
from the cell, you're only
a good nine feet away.
You just look at it, it
looks like the regular vent
that was there in
the first place.
Morris and the Anglins
finally make their way
through the hole
for the first time
and they make their
way to the top
of the cell block through
that maintenance hallway
by climbing up pipes to
take a look at the vent
that West has picked
out for the escape.
But when they get to that vent,
they realize that
they have a problem.
The vent is bolted into place.
The escapees will need time
out of their cells over
weeks and even months
to file down the bolt
securing the roof vent.
But they face regular
nightly checks by the guards.
So to convince the guards
they're still in their cells.
the escapees design fake
heads for their prison beds.
The dummy heads have been
fashioned out of anything
that these three men could
have gotten their hands on.
They're paper mache,
but they're also soap.
They're also cement.
For the finishing touch
on those paper mache heads.
Clarence Anglin takes real
live human hair clippings
from the barbershop and pastes
them to the top of the heads.
The fake heads give the escapees
the time they need out of their
cells to file down the bolt
and gain access to the roof.
But getting outta the building
is only half the plan.
They also have to figure
out a way to the shore.
Look at Alcatraz Island
where it sits in
San Francisco Bay.
It's only about a mile
from San Francisco proper.
That mile of water is
pretty treacherous,
so I know they do a
triathlon there every year.
Even the triathletes that do it
find it a pretty
treacherous swim.
So these aspiring escapists
come up with a plan.
They need a raft or some
kind of floatation device.
The escapees come
up with an ingenious plan
to turn prison rain jackets
into an inflatable raft
and several life preservers.
Looking at a "Popular
Mechanics" magazine,
they were able to not only
figure out how to make 'em,
but also come up
with waterproof glue
that would keep it
together in the water.
They also fashioned
paddles out of wood scraps
and plywood that they
find around the prison.
They steal a concertina and
use it as a kind of bellows
to inflate this makeshift raft.
Even if the prisoners were
successful with the raft,
this is by no means
a proper boat.
This is basically a
floating mattress.
Finally, on June 11th, 1962,
West says the plans
are complete.
When the cell block
lights are turned off
at 9:00 PM, the men
make their move,
but almost immediately,
there's a problem.
Allen West has done too good
a job at fashioning his fake
vent cover and he's
affixed it so tightly
that he can't remove it.
So the other three meet
at the top of this wall
and West isn't there, so
they leave him behind.
Investigators piece
together what happens next.
You could actually see
their footprints on the roof
the next morning and they
got over to the kitchen area
and there was a stovepipe
that came up that went
above the top of the
roof of the facility
and they shimmied down.
That stovepipe got
onto the ground.
They scramble away from the
building toward this massive
chain link fence, and
when they get there,
they throw this huge
blanket over the barbed wire
so that they can climb
over it without incident.
Sometime
around 10:00 PM,
Frank Morris, John Anglin,
and his brother Clarence
launch their makeshift raft
into the treacherous waters
of the San Francisco Bay,
never to be seen again.
The next morning,
once it's discovered
these prisoners are missing,
the big question among
the prisoners, the guards,
and eventually the public,
is did they make it?
So the FBI is called
in to launch a search.
There are incredible perils
that face you if you try
to dip even one toe in the
waters of the San Francisco Bay.
It's 40 to 60 degrees.
The human body is not
accustomed to that.
Hypothermia can set
in well within one hour,
sometimes within minutes,
and the fog can be so dense
that you cannot see more
than a few dozen feet
in front of you.
Being on a raft, mostly
subject to the moving currents,
it would've been
completely disorienting.
Also, the current
is very strong.
It's almost twice as
strong as any human,
even an accomplished
swimmer, can paddle.
There is a massive
manhunt that is launched.
Air, land, sea, the
FBI, local authorities.
Their faces are in every
newspaper in America.
Their hometowns are
watched very closely.
The manhunt quickly deduces
that there's no question
that these men made
it out of their cells
and outta the prison
complex and into the water.
But after that, there's
a lot of mystery.
Five weeks after the escape,
a sailor aboard a
Norwegian freighter
makes a grim discovery.
One of the deckhands
saw a body in the water.
It seemed to fit the
description of the clothes
that would be worn by
an Alcatraz inmate.
The alleged
corpse is never recovered,
but authorities are
certain it could not be
one of the escaped convicts.
Five weeks is just too long.
It is a point at which
the body has gone
into such an advanced
stage of decay
that it's almost
unrecognizable as a human body.
San Francisco Bay is home
to about a dozen
different shark species.
One of these species is
the infamous great white.
Given how many different kinds
of animals are in
San Francisco Bay
and in the surrounding
ocean, it's very unlikely
that anybody in the
water would have remained
intact for five weeks.
Most likely, all of the tissue
would've been picked clean.
But despite the FBI's analysis,
some believe the convicts
somehow made it to land.
They had a really
great plan in place
and there is some
evidence that suggests
that they might have
made it after all.
June 1962.
Although the three convicts
successfully escaped
Alcatraz prison, their
trail seems to go cold
in the frigid waters of
the San Francisco Bay.
Most people following
the case presume
the men never made
it to freedom.
The FBI concludes that
these three men have drowned.
Others are quick to say, maybe
something else happened.
You can certainly see how
embarrassing this would be
for the prison and for the FBI,
this maximum security prison
and yet these three inmates
were able to outsmart the guards
and the FBI with some
paper mache heads,
a spoon, and some raincoats.
While no bodies are
found, there is evidence
that pops up in
the first few days
that raises a lot of questions.
Investigator's best source
is still sitting in a
cell on Alcatraz Island.
Allen West is
already identified as
the fourth escapee, or
the would-be escapee.
He has the paper mache head
and the false front on
his vent to prove it.
After describing
his clever plan for getting out
of the cell block, West divulges
the convicts'
planned escape route.
Instead of traveling one
mile south to San Francisco,
they'll head two miles
north to Angel Island.
It may seem a little
strange why the inmates
would've wanted to go two
miles north to another island,
but it kind of makes sense
because they could
have been recognized
or spotted in their
prison garb if they were
in a heavily populated area.
At the time,
Angel Island is home
to a m*ssile base that's
being decommissioned
and therefore could
hold advantages
for the three wanted men.
It's being taken
offline and there are
very few people there
at any given time.
There also might be actual
boats there that the men can use
to make it to the mainland.
The mainland in this
instance isn't San Francisco,
but Marin County, which is only
a quarter of a mile north.
Once they landed in
Marin, Allen West says
the plan was to steal a car.
Allen West gave many interviews,
some of them good,
some of them bad.
Did West tell the truth?
You really had to take
him, anything he said
with a grain of salt.
The FBI has all of this
information the morning
after the escape, and sure
enough, there is some evidence
that suggests that
West's theory is correct.
While searching
the waters around Angel Island
a few days after the escape,
investigators discover a
crucial clue that could line up
with the testimony
of Allen West.
There was a sealed
packet made out
of the rubber raincoats,
so obviously none of
the water would get in.
They were able to confirm that
they belonged to the Anglins
because they had many
Anglin family members,
some pictures of
the family members.
Investigators
also find another clue
off of Angel Island, a
makeshift wooden paddle,
just like the one
Allen West described.
All the stuff they found
in San Francisco Bay led them
to believe that they drowned
in San Francisco Bay.
The FBI states that
there are no bodies,
there's no life raft
on Angel Island,
and the trip would've been too
difficult to make at night.
So they stand by their
original conclusion
that these men had drowned.
December 31st, 1979.
More than 17 years
after the escape,
the FBI officially
closes the case.
The file is handed over
to the US Marshals
in the event any
new leads come up.
The case remains
dormant until 2003.
US Marshal Michael d*ke
decides to just poke around
and see if this famous
story, if he might be able
to add something to it.
It isn't long before d*ke
finds compelling evidence in
the government documents.
Michael d*ke goes back
into the Marin County police
records and he finds that
there is a stolen car report
that there was a
which was reported stolen on
the night of the men's escape.
The eyewitness that saw it
first said there were three men
inside of the vehicle.
At the time, that
didn't mean anything
because the escape wasn't
yet public knowledge.
Then, d*ke
finds another police report
from Stockton, California,
almost 100 miles
east of Marin County.
Within just a few hours
of the reported auto theft,
a man in Stockton says that
he's forced off the road
by a blue Chevy being
driven by three men.
Later on, when that
blue car is seen again,
closer to Stockton with
three people inside of it,
that raises some eyebrows.
It also does provide
fodder for the idea
that maybe the FBI closed the
case a little bit too quickly.
What's sure is that it does
stoke even more alternative
theories about what
might have happened.
If this
evidence is to be trusted,
the men may have very well
survived the frigid waters
and fled to Angel Island
according to plan.
Frank Morris and
the Anglin brothers
really could have
gotten away with it.
There's never
been any hard proof behind
the FBI's long-held belief
that the Alcatraz escapees
d*ed in the San Francisco Bay.
What evidence does exist
points to several other
possible outcomes.
There are mysteries
that are still surrounding
Frank Morris and
the Anglin brothers
after they reached the water.
One of the statements Allen
West gave to the FBI was
that the escapees were
gonna head to Angel Island
and sure enough,
they turned up some
evidence on Angel Island.
But even this theory has been
called into question
in recent years,
thanks to a sophisticated new
model of San Francisco Bay.
It's certainly possible
that Allen West was correct
that the original plan
was for the inmates to go
to Angel Island just
north of Alcatraz.
But the truth is that
given the currents,
what they were doing
in the Bay that night,
the inmates might not
have had a choice.
The Army Corps of Engineers
has developed a large scale
hydraulic model of
San Francisco Bay
to study the tides and the
currents of this system.
A team of Dutch scientists
was then allowed
to use this model to predict
where the inmates
might have been taken
if they were successful
in getting off the island.
The model
reveals that any attempt
to reach Angel Island
directly from Alcatraz
means paddling
against the current.
It would've been almost
impossible for them
to fight their way
against that current.
It would've been like trying
to swim in a treadmill.
And with the speed
of the current,
it would be very
difficult for you
to fight your way
back to the shore.
The scientists' model shows that
as the tide is going
out that night,
the current travels west,
toward the one mile wide,
Golden Gate Strait that
leads out to the Pacific.
And the closer they
got to the Golden Gate,
the faster the currents
would've gotten
because all of that water
is being funneled out
through that very
narrow opening.
It happens pretty fast too,
and there are plenty of
examples of small vessels
that either lose power
or become disabled
and end up getting
swept out to sea.
As the tide turns
between 11:00 and 12:00 AM,
the current slows and a window
of opportunity opens up.
There is this small
moment called slack tide
where there is an uncommon calm
and there's almost
no current at all.
The scientists simulate
what would happen if
the inmates entered
the water during this window.
So as part of this simulation,
these scientists run a
bunch of different scenarios
to see what would've happened.
In the first one with
basically no paddling,
the raft just carries
them out to sea.
The second simulation
was with the raft,
with the inmates paddling,
and what was found
is that even though
the raft is being swept
toward the Golden Gate,
with enough effort,
the inmates could have
deflected the raft away
from the mouth of
San Francisco Bay
and continued their journey.
Just beyond
the Golden Gate Bridge
sits Fort Cronkite, a m*llitary
post during World w*r II.
By 1962, many of its buildings
were being torn down
by the army.
It's here that the FBI finds
another important piece
of evidence from the escape.
So one of the life vests
turns up on Fort Cronkite.
They were able to test it
and they figured out, hey,
this thing is
functioning very well.
Allen West makes the claim
that they're heading
toward Angel Island
and we find objects
at Angel Island.
At the same time, we
also have the life vest
that was found at Fort Cronkite.
So now, we can connect objects
to two separate locations.
The model shows that
after the window of
opportunity at slack tide,
the tide turns and
the current reverses.
It's feasible the
escapees' items
could have been carried back
into the bay hours later.
That could explain why a
packet of items that belonged to
one of the Anglin brothers, as
well as one of their paddles,
ended up at Angel Island.
Even if they didn't
intend to go there.
We know that if Morris
and the Anglins left
when the tides went out,
the current would've swept
them under the
Golden Gate Bridge.
What would be harder to
explain is why this life vest
would end up at Fort Cronkite
when the current
wasn't taking it
in that particular direction.
Fort Cronkite sits just
inside Marin County, not
far from the location
where the blue Chevrolet
was reported stolen,
according to the reports US
Marshal Michael d*ke uncovered.
It's possible that Allen
West's story was true
as he understood it,
but after they'd left him
behind, the current takes them
to a totally different spot
than any of them had planned
and of course, than Allen
West would've known about.
In any of these plans, you
have to think on the fly.
If they couldn't get
to their objective A,
they gotta have plan B.
Plan B could have been
just going with a current.
It's also possible,
of course, that even
with all these effects
that were found,
the life jacket at Fort
Cronkite, the photos
and the list of family
contacts floating
around near Angel Island,
all of those items could
of course have been found,
of course have been found,
but the men still
could have drowned.
In 1979, the FBI concludes
that the three Alcatraz
escapees never made it to shore
and d*ed in the frigid,
shark infested waters
of the San Francisco Bay.
But maybe that's exactly
what the men wanted everyone
to believe, when in fact
they devised a much more
sophisticated
getaway with the help
of some very important friends.
When you look at who
came through Alcatraz,
some of the biggest gangsters
we've had in this country,
Al Capone, Machine g*n Kelly.
It is true that when
these men were at Alcatraz
that they rubbed shoulders
with famous mobsters,
including Whitey Bulger.
One story is that Whitey
Bulger was helping these men
in their escape by
a certain workaround
of these hot showers.
It's said that one other
security measure at Alcatraz
was to maintain the showers
at a very hot temperature.
This was so the prisoners could
not acclimate their bodies
to cold water and then
have a greater chance
of being successful
in swimming away.
Allegedly, Bulger
helps the men find a workaround.
Supposedly, Whitey Bulger
advises these inmates
to take buckets of hot
water from the showers
and allow it to cool down
and then use that to
acclimate their bodies.
But even so, to really acclimate
your body, you would have
to be submerged in the
water for a period of time,
not just pouring a bucket
of cold water on your
body momentarily.
The coldest the water could
get would be air temperature,
room temperature,
which is likely not
as cold as what the
Bay actually is.
Another influential crime boss,
Harlem's Ellsworth "Bumpy"
Johnson, is rumored to have
provided the men a much easier
way to get to the mainland.
So in 1993, another confession
and possibly explanation
comes to light.
On his deathbed, a man
named John Leroy Kelly
says that he was an
associate of another mobster
Harlem's Ellsworth
"Bumpy" Johnson.
Kelly said that he had
been hired in the 1960s
to abet in this escape.
Bumpy Johnson kind of ran
the African American mob
in Harlem at the time.
He was in a block that
was one block over
and they were segregated.
And there are stories out there
that Bumpy was very familiar
with the escape process.
Kelly said that Johnson told him
that he had helped
in the escape.
He says that Johnson had hired
somebody to wait in the Bay
for them in a small
boat that was unlit,
but painted a very bright
color of white so that it was
as visible as possible, even
in the fog and the darkness.
A San Francisco
police officer named
Robert Checchi corroborates
at least part of the story.
What Officer Checchi
had seen when he went out
for a smoke break in
the Presidio area,
he's standing right there
at the San Francisco Bay,
right at the edge
there in the city,
and he sees what he thinks
is a pristine, newer boat,
come into San Francisco Bay.
Running lights,
everything's going.
He sees it shut the running
lights off, shut the engine off
for a period of
time, 15, 20 minutes,
something in that area.
Then the lights go back
on, the engine starts up,
and the boat goes back
outta San Francisco Bay.
Checchi senses
something's not quite right,
but ignores his intuition.
It's not until the next morning
that he'll realize his mistake.
The next morning when
it hits the fan that,
hey, we got three
escapees outta Alcatraz,
he goes to his supervisor,
they get in touch with the FBI.
Officer Checchi tells
him exactly what he saw.
The FBI claims to
follow up on this tip
and to go right out
to that exact spot.
But of course, even if
the boat had been there,
it's no longer there.
They don't follow
up any further.
Nor can anyone corroborate
the last, ironic chapter of
Kelly's deathbed confession.
In a strange and cruel
twist of fate for the inmates,
Kelly suggests that the
fugitive's mob connections
were what led to their deaths.
These two guys, John Leroy Kelly
and this other
associate, they picked up
these three escapees,
took 'em back to Seattle,
got in a pickup truck and
drove to Yakima, Washington,
which is just a
couple hours' ride,
to a location where they met
with an old bank robber
associate of Frank Morris
and were each given
to go to Canada and disappear.
The plan, as far
as Morris and the Anglins know,
is for Kelly to help them
cross the border into Canada.
But as the saying goes, there's
no honor among thieves.
These two guys, John Leroy Kelly
and this other
associate are driving
through the Snoqualmie Pass
area in Washington state.
They pull over, they
reach under the seats
into a toolkit, pull out
two .38s, go in the back,
sh**t all the guys,
sh**t the three escapees,
steal the money, and
then bury 'em in a hole
that they had already dug there.
Kelly provides a very
detailed description
of where the bodies can be found
in the Seattle, Washington area.
US Marshals comb the area.
If you kind of
follow his description,
it loosely brings
you to that area
that I've been at three
or four times already
and found the trees they
were talking about.
But no bodies are ever found.
They go back to Kelly,
but he's already d*ed.
But the fact that
authorities listened to him
and followed up on
his tips does suggest
that authorities are
still open to the idea
that authorities are
still open to the idea
that maybe these
guys did make it,
and maybe at least in
There is little doubt
the 1962 escape from
Alcatraz was well thought out
and ex*cuted to near perfection.
And if these three men did
successfully cross the water,
they'd have to disappear
for the rest of their lives,
and that might be the most
difficult part of all.
I always call
Frank Morris the kind
of neglected Alcatraz escapee
because he really didn't
have any close family
that knew him.
So it kind of makes sense
that he may have been just able
to slip away and never
be heard from again.
That may not be so
easy for the Anglin brothers.
John and Clarence
Anglin, however,
are born into a big,
loving family.
Lots of siblings, lots
of extended family.
They used to get in trouble
a lot and on occasion,
they'd robb convenience
stores or grocery stores.
They end up in jail in 1958
on a bank robbery charge,
but they don't wanna be there
and then they're smart guys,
so they devise a way to escape.
Whenever they got arrested,
they'd always tried
to figure out how to escape.
But in 1961, after
one escape attempt too many,
the Anglins earned themselves
a ticket to the rock.
Even as John and Clarence
are bouncing their way
through the prison system
and eventually ending up
at Alcatraz, they never
forget where they came from.
When you look at every
single escape case,
not just this one, investigators
go to family first.
Escapees, it's very hard for
them not to get in contact
with their previous family.
And that's
exactly what happened,
according to a childhood
friend of the Anglin brothers.
According to Fred Brizzi,
he grew up with the Anglins
as a kid, and they
used to play together
and they would tow themselves
behind boats on the river
down in Georgia and Florida.
He was a pilot and he used
to run loads of marijuana
outta South America, central
America, Mexico, up to the US.
To a lot of his friends,
Brizzi always talks about
flying to different parts
of the globe, but one
of his favorite places
that he enjoys visiting the
most is the country of Brazil,
where his buddies, John and
Clarence Anglin are hiding out.
Supposedly, the
brother's first indirect contact
with the rest of the family
comes in 1992, 30 years
after the escape, with Brizzi
acting as the go-between.
Brizzi contacts
the Anglins' mother
and says that her
sons came to him
and that he was the
one who told them,
go to Brazil, you can
make a life there,
and that he can confirm
that they indeed
did make it out
of Alcatraz alive.
Imagine the emotions
of the mother knowing
that her two boys,
who are part of one
of the most infamous
prison scapes in all
of American history,
are in Brazil,
while the FBI is telling her
that they're both actually dead.
As proof for
Mrs. Anglin to say
that he's not just
making this up,
he brings along a
photograph of her sons.
It's not the best quality photo.
It's grainy, and the
men have facial hair,
and they look a
little unfamiliar.
But for a woman who is
desperate to see proof
of life of her children,
it's pretty good.
Brizzi
supposedly tells Mrs. Anglin
that John and Clarence are
now running a farm in Brazil.
In the last few years, family
members have even gone down
to Rio to follow the trail
and locate the
long lost brothers.
Even though the picture's
several decades old,
you could still match kind
of the geographical area
and they pretty
much found the area
that they believed the
photos was were taken in,
and there is a large farm there.
The family hires a local
guide to help them through town
and as they're going
through the town,
they start asking
locals whether or not
they'd seen guys like
John and Clarence
come through that area.
What they do find is stories.
They find that people who
live in this region say,
"Oh yeah, there were
these three American guys
who showed up in
the early 1960s.
They kind of kept to themselves,
but they were friendly
and they started
living in this cave."
It's rumored that
some of the locals
in the town are curious as to
what the men's intentions are.
So the local town
sheriff heads up
to the cave formation
to meet with the men.
The men put him at
ease and they actually
end up becoming friends
with the sheriff
and he goes out of his
way to provide them
with some food and
allows 'em to stay.
It's a tantalizing clue,
but that's where
the trail goes cold.
Several weeks later, the
men apparently move on,
leaving behind a single
photograph as possible proof
of their new life in Brazil.
They never find them.
In 2020, however, the
family takes this photograph
that they've been holding
onto to a facility
where they do a
kind of analysis.
The facial structure of the men
in the photograph is analyzed,
comparing it with verified
photos of the Anglins.
This software
confirms that, yes,
the men in the photo are indeed
John and Clarence Anglin.
However, authorities
are much less convinced
that this photograph
actually is the Anglins.
Unfortunately,
it wasn't the best.
That Polaroid picture,
one of the guys' head is turned
slightly and sunglasses are on.
So we're dealing with something
that's not a hundred
percent science.
It's not like DNA,
but at least it gives
us enough information
to proceed on the
particular lead.
Let's remember that
this story originates
with Fred Brizzi.
He's a conman, he's a convict.
You have to take everything
he says with a grain of salt.
Without more conclusive proof,
the FBI refuses to revise
their original assessment
that the escapees
d*ed in the water.
It's still an active case
because they're still calling me
and asking me for some
historical information
on the case.
There's no doubt that the FBI
and the US Marshals have
received numerous reports
over the years, and they're
going to follow them all.
Decades after
the escape from Alcatraz,
the US Marshals continue
to follow up on leads.
In 2013, they get a call
from the San Francisco
Police Department
with a new development.
The San Francisco Police
Department gets a letter
and the person who opens it
cannot believe what
they're reading.
It is a long, handwritten letter
signed by none other
than John Anglin.
The letter begins,
"My name is John Anglin.
I escaped from
Alcatraz in June 1962
with my brother Clarence
and Frank Morris.
I am 83 years old
and in bad shape."
He indicates that he's
the only one alive still,
but that all three made it.
It says that since that night,
they've been living out
their lives pretty quietly
in Minot, North Dakota.
If the letter is real,
it's an incredible look
into what these men had
been up to since 1962.
It also includes the information
that Frank Morris d*ed in 2008.
The letter also
says Clarence Anglin d*ed
in 2011, making John
the sole survivor.
This letter, however, is not
a confession or a check-in.
The purpose of this
letter is John wants
to trade medical care
for a confession.
It's not that unusual when
I'm reading that letter.
We have had people turn
themselves in for medical help.
It's happened in the
past quite a bit.
He's not kidding
about these terms.
He says that he wants the
SFPD to announce on TV
that he'll get just a year's
sentence and medical care,
and if they do that,
he'll write back
and disclose his whereabouts.
If authentic, the letter
is the first public contact
from any of the three
men since the escape.
But when US Marshals
investigate the letter further,
they have misgivings.
Whether the letter's
legitimate or not,
we've done all the criminal
analysis we can on it.
The letter was inconclusive
from the DNA perspective.
The letter is written
by a very shaky hand
and some parts are
impossible to read.
Handwriting analysis of
this text against letters
that they had from their time
at Alcatraz is inconclusive.
Not to say that John couldn't
have had somebody else
write it for him, and we've
come up with the fact
that we can't corroborate any of
that information in the letter.
So to me, it's just
another great mystery
of this particular case
that we've come across
so many times in
this investigation.
Strongly suspecting a hoax,
US Marshals choose
not to take the author
of the letter up on his offer.
Whether or not this
letter was actually written
by John Anglin,
even if these men
still were alive,
they'd right now be
in their nineties.
But besides this letter,
there have always been
rumors dating back many years
that could support the
theory that the Anglins
have been living in the
US the entire time.
There are members of the
Anglin family, including some
of their sisters who
suspect that John
and Clarence had
been reaching out
to the family for some time.
There's lore that John
and Clarence may have
even made a personal
appearance at their
mother's funeral.
There are two odd
looking characters
who show up at the
Florida funeral.
It's two men dressed as women.
Supposedly could
have been the Anglin
brothers dressed as women.
That's never been able
to be corroborated.
Later on, when the
Anglin brothers' father
George passed away,
the same situation happens
when two strangers show up,
but this time with long beards
and slip into the viewing.
They spend just a few
moments at the casket,
shed a few tears, and then leave
without acknowledging
anyone there.
I can tell you from the
Marshal Service perspective,
we might have done some
spot surveillance on 'em
for whatever reason,
whether an anniversary date,
family member passing away.
Hours of surveillance,
nothing ever turned up.
Without further evidence,
it's impossible to
say conclusively
whether the Anglins really
did live out the rest
of their lives in the United
States or anywhere else.
This is a fun story
to think about, right?
I mean, here you have
this inescapable fortress,
this supermax prison,
and here you have these three
guys who figured a way out.
They've bounced in and out
of prisons their whole life,
institutions, but they
used what they've got.
Their smarts, whatever they
can pick up around the prison,
they fight the law
and maybe they won.
No bodies have
ever been produced.
No evidence of their death
has ever been produced.
It's still one of the great
mysteries of the 20th century
and everybody gloms onto it
because they love
when an underdog wins.
The US Marshal Service
plans to keep the case open
until they can definitively
say the escapees
are dead or in custody.
It's their way of warning
anyone else thinking
of escaping prison
that the marshals
will never give up.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries".
05x06 - Escape from Alcatraz
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